Turn Key Blog. Things we've done and the things we love.

Love is well and truly in the air this Valentine’s Day at Turn Key HQ with the 2013 Valentine’s campaign we’ve been putting together for our client Eden .

Briefed to design and create a range of Valentine’s collateral for the High Wycombe shopping centre, the team got stuck straight into coming up with some great creative ideas. To showcase Eden’s premium retail and entertainment offering, we swapped cliché cards and cheesy slogans for pretty pastels and everybody’s favourite retro sweet, the love heart.

We’re really pleased with the final artwork – the designers have certainly spread the love and our PR and marketing teams have thought of some really catchy slogans. The creative is being used in everything from page banners to posters, emailers to F – all promoting Eden’s Valentine’s Day offering of gifts, fashion, entertainment.

Happy Valentine’s Day from TK!

We’re well into January now and 2013 is looking to be a busy one for the creative industry. Our team of design, PR, marketing and digital experts have put their heads together to predict the future trends that will be coming our way this year.

Jude Turner, Head of Digital

“My prediction is that data will become increasingly important – not just what we do with it but how we analyse it.

“As clients become more and more demanding regarding ROI for their marketing spend, we will have to show them how to understand their customers better – using social media, web analytics, email stats and search results – so they can give them more relevant and targeted content and better convert stats into sales!”

Leanne Bayston, PR Account Manager

“The digital sphere is changing the way we consume news and how businesses engage with their audiences. This will continue to evolve in 2013 and PR agencies which don’t embrace this will be left behind.

“We’ve already been working closely with our digital team to develop strategies for our clients. PR will continue to become more about two-way communication and engaging with an audience rather than pushing messages at them.”

Richard Colvill, Creative Director

“I’m starting to see a massive shift of interest into user interface design. This has come about since the iPhone etc and is a great way to showcase attention to detail and to make apps much more appealing. Our designers are all spending more time designing, crafting, shading and texturing user friendly graphics. This is something that all designers are putting their skills to, not just digital designers. These gorgeous buttons and elements are right up our street as they always utilise light and shade along with texture and depth, which is part of our house style.

“A bit of a digi prediction but I’m thinking that all web sites will be as exposed as possible, what I mean by this is that they will have all the options open to the viewer, similar theory to the iPhone. I’m noticing a lot more mosaic, grid and blog style sites. I predict that single page sites which utilise the scroll action only will come in to effect.

“Old-school print techniques have also come back in a big way. Foil blocking is almost a given on print jobs now, everything I see has a foil shine somewhere. I’m predicting that flat foils will start taking the crown. Other traditional print techniques like letterpress are also grabbing the designers spec sheets, with the options of many more colours than foils but still with the seductive impressed depth finish and fluo options.”

Mike Robinson, Head of Marketing

“With the market still in economic uncertainty, businesses are facing many challenges and making tough calls on budgets. In 2013, clients will no doubt continue to look for value, trust and real partnerships from their agency.

“Brands also need to think smarter about their customers – truly understanding their world is key to communicating effectively. Bringing this insight together with engaging messaging, content and creativity which truly connect people to the essence of your brand, will drive your business forward. So it’s those brands who strive to combine planning, insight and creativity that will no doubt come out top this year.”

Following the popularity and success of GO Food’s flagship store in Spitalfields Market, GO has opened its second London store in the hip and trendy area of the city,  Chiswick Park .

In addition to GO’s concept of fresh, convenient, quality food, GO wanted the new store to be reflective of its customers in the modern, urban Chiswick area.

Briefed to design something original and unique, our designers put their Macs to one side and took to the drawing board (literally). They hand-sketched the design (seen below), which was then projected onto the wall and hand drawn by a local London-based illustrator.

The original and contemporary look has been designed to mirror the quirky, cool and edgy environment of the surrounding area. This was really important when it came to creating the right atmosphere and ambience for the venue, whilst creating standout from surrounding competition.

If you’re in the area and fancy a deliciously fresh lunch, pop into GO Chiswick – the Pizza Parma comes highly recommended.

No day is ever the same for our Digital Account Director, James Wray . Here’s a little update on the sights he’s seen recently, including Ideal Heating’s stand at this year’s Retro Expo…

Sometimes working at a creative agency, you find yourself in places you never dreamed you’d get to.

Last week I was working on the latest album website for metalcore band Bring Me The Horizon one day the next finding myself at an onshore gas drilling rig near the Lancashire coast! The following day, Rachel Phipps and I attended Retro Expo at the Birmingham NEC, otherwise known as the UK heating industry’s event of the year.  Ceaseless glamour!

We were there to meet our client Ideal Heating and to see Turn Key’s artwork and animations for the Magnificent 7 campaign come to life on their amazing new exhibition stand.

As a career-long digital marketer, I’m used to seeing the fruits of my labour exist in the virtual world. However, it is still something really quite special when I get the chance to see work in a physical environment, particularly for me when it consists of an outdoor digital element too!

Ideal’s stand was the cream of the crop at Retro Expert, the most stand-out by far! Consisting of statues of huge rotating 7’s (marking the ‘7 year warranty’ campaign), a bar (always important in attracting visitors!), and beautiful canvases with the campaign messages. There was even a giant LED video wall (the kind you see at rock concerts) playing a specifically created animation including a timer, counting down in real time to the end of the 7 year warranty offer.

Take a look for yourself…

We’ve been working closely with Eden shopping centre in High Wycombe since early 2011. One of our main objectives has been to excite and inspire shoppers within the centre, as well as promote sections of the centre such as the entertainment area.

It’s been a great opportunity to use the empty shop hoardings for the creative and we have designed eye-catching messages, both directional and campaign-led. We’ve also designed the store finders, digital screen videos and plenty of posters and leaflets to grab the attention of shoppers.

Last week we were lucky enough to see some of our designs in action as we visited Eden, here’s a little look at some of the marketing merchandise we’ve created:

As many marketeers and creatives will know, The Drum recently launched a Pussy Riot campaign in support of freeing the Russian punk band from jail. As part of its continual quest to promote freedom of speech, the publication called out for designers and creative professionals to invent a quirky piece of merchandise to support the appeal.

At Turn Key, we love a challenge and our Junior Designer, Carl , quickly got to work. He came up with the incredible app, Angry Bitches.

The app takes on the legacy of the popular Angry Birds, aimed at the ever-growing demand of the casual gamer. The objective of the game is to wreak havoc for your rights in the name of feminism, using the ’slinky shot’ (cleverly entitled by Emma from PR!) to fire band members and disrupt the opposition. As the game develops you gather more power as you race through levels unleashing accumulated ‘Pussy Power’ in the form of speed, strength and other abilities.

As soon as we submitted the artwork to The Drum, it was uploaded onto the website as their ‘Pick of the Day’ and needless to say Carl was grinning like a Cheshire Cat for the rest of the afternoon!

The winning piece of merchandise will be transformed into an actual product and sold with all proceeds going to the Pussy Riot appeal. Voting opened on The Drum’s website last week and closes this Friday (28 ^th September) so PLEASE support us and vote Turn Key. Tell your friends, tell your family and tweet it to anyone who will listen and let’s bring Angry Bitches to life!

CLICK HERE TO VOTE!

This week at Turn Key we’re celebrating #CreativeWeekUK , a national awareness initiative sponsored by Adobe that celebrates all things creative.

We like to think of ourselves as creative experts here at TK Towers! Whether at home or at work, we express our creativity in multiple ways across hundreds of channels; from writing blogs to designing websites, taking photos to baking cakes. In honour of Adobe’s week-long campaign , some of the TK team from our creative, marketing, digital, PR and operations departments are giving you a little insight into their creative thought processes and how they interpret and express creativity!

Paul Hainsworth, Designer

Creativity for me is being imaginative and original and applying that into something visual or tangible. I feel there is no structure, form or process to creativity; it’s not something you do – anyone just can’t sit down and ‘be creative’ – it’s something you are born with and nurture over time, it’s about paying attention to every detail around you, from the moment you wake up to getting into bed at night.

I get inspired by pretty much everything; if I see a piece of advertising that I really like it pushes me to want to do something better or if I see work I feel is poor, I remember the mistakes other people have made and try not to make them in my own design. My ultimate creative hero is Steve Jobs; his vision has given the world some of the most beautiful and amazing never-seen-before products.

Samara Bott, PR Account Manager

I think creativity is anything which evokes some kind of emotion. I can look at a piece of design, a headline or just a passer-by wearing an interesting coat and think how creative he/she has been to grab my attention and subsequently evoke an emotion or response of some kind. Marmite is a brand I’ve always admired for pushing creative boundaries in marketing and PR, the recent Marmarati campaign was fantastic and inspired me to try more new things with social media moving forward.

Other peoples’ creativity inspires me to be creative. My best friend took an incredible photograph whilst travelling in Mongolia and it is still my favourite photograph ever taken! You can learn a lot from the people you associate yourself with; my colleagues inspire my creativity daily, along with a sugary tea to get myself in the zone!

Tess Eaton, Marketing Account Manager

Creativity for me is looking at the world in different ways and noticing interesting things, then passing these onto other people through things that you do. Creativity is about not accepting the ordinary or the usual, but digging around to find something special, more colourful or unusual and looking at life from a different view.

I get inspired by everything; the world around me, other people, things that I see in magazines such as Oh Comely! or sites such as Pinterest , nature, my friends, books, visiting new cities, great independent cafés, restaurants and art galleries.

James Wray, Digital Account Director

I think creativity is the ability to learn, soaking up knowledge from many different sources and across different aspects of life, and then applying this knowledge to the task at hand. It is creating freedom of thought and expression, within a disciplined environment that is your work. As a digital marketing specialist, I express creativity through developing digital marketing strategies, search engine optimisation, exploring web development techniques and delivering marketing campaigns that work. There are so many websites and designs that I feel are rich in creativity, recently I’ve admired http://www.newzealand.com and http://goodsie.com/ .

Music has to be the best form of creativity in my opinion, although I do love Malcolm Gladwell !

Nik Entwistle, Managing Director

I think, no matter what channel in which it is being expressed, creativity is something that makes you go wow! Turn Key is a hub of creativity and we all express it in countless ways. A good environment is key to this process, having the freedom to express your thoughts and opinions without preconceptions or limitations. The team inspires me everyday to be more creative!

Carl Holderness, Junior Designer

For me the studio environment is very important; whether at work or university. Interaction with fellow designers at TK is one of the main aspects of this environment that provides a boost to think conceptually and not stagnate. This social interaction is extended especially as a young designer through the internet, as vast and broad as it is, it is a constantly updated visual reference for what is going on in the world of design. Sites such as the Behance network and showcase a fresh and broad range of creative work by inspiring designers, providing a good talking point in studio.

The recent really caught my attention. It’s an incredible idea in terms of visual and online engagement and leverages Superga’s customer base of creative, technological and social people. As a creative and an avid user of Instagram, I couldn’t wait to get involved in the concept. Needless to say, there were hundreds of entries submitted internationally.

Our Junior Designer Carl went back to his roots when he visited Leeds College of Art’s ‘End of Year Show’…

Having been part of the show last year showcasing my own work, I knew how exciting and well-thought of this annual event is. Attracting a number of visitors, including professional designers, studios and potential employers seeking new talent, the event really lived up to my expectations.

The exhibition took place in the Blenheim Walk Building and each student had a dedicated space to display their portfolios from the past two years, all accompanied by some beautifully printed business cards.

With a passion for all things creative, I’m always keen to find new inspiration and love discovering the next generation of designers. In particular, the Graphic Design course provided some really inspiring fresh designs from brand identity to illustration. The work presented was of such a high-quality that some of it could’ve easily been mistaken as a professional’s.

Rosalind Stoughton really stood out. I loved the typeface she created called ‘Fonecian’ and the rest of her work showed a strong approach to print and finishes.

Richard Robinson was another striking creative. His 3D type work and illustrations particularly impressed me, especially the awesome ‘Marvel’ designs which were not only attention-grabbing but demonstrated strong technical skills.

Naomi Farrar ’s branding work across a range of print was also exceptionally well delivered and photographed.

I managed to get some lovely photographs of the students’ work including one student who gives Turn Key a run for its money with a new menu and takeaway box design for our client, Chaophraya!

Carl and Paul two of our creative designers took a step into the world of design last week, visiting the Metric Exhibition at Dock Street Market in Leeds.

The month long exhibition showcased 27 different British street and graffiti artists, illustrators, designers and printmakers.  After the patriotic Jubilee weekend, the Metric continued the celebrations by exhibiting the best pieces from the British design world from Banksy cohort and Bristol legend Inkie, to Leeds’ own Drew Millward – this truly represents the pioneers in UK creativity – some great inspiration for our budding design legends to-be.

Check out the boy’s favourite pieces and some cool shots they got from the exhibition!

Over at Turn Key, we love a good competition, even more so when we can all get in on the action! Over the past month we’ve gone T-shirt crazy as we were challenged to channel our creative juices into the form of a funky top starring the fabulous TK logo!

There were ten entries in total designed by the creative experts amongst us.  Here’s a look at the good, the bad and the (slightly) ugly competitors:

The idea behind the competition was to design a modern, trendy T to be printed for every member of team TK. As the deadline for competition entries passed, voting commenced and we, along with guest judge and our favourite photographer, Guy Farrow, picked our preferred style.

It was a tough decision but our Senior Designer, Phill Smith triumphed and was named the winner with his black ‘block’ design:

When quizzed about his inspiration for the creation, Phill said he’d aimed to design a cool T-shirt that everyone could wear. As for the mysterious black block on the front… he wanted to get everyone’s imaginations going to interpret the meanings behind it.

Phill will be adapting his design to perfection over the next few days before it is sent to the printers – needless to say we are all itching to try it on!